Team Nagi Newsletter - February 2025

Hi Guys,

Hope you’ve all had a great month.

Another month down and another month closer to spring then summer!

It’s been another challenging month for many from what I’ve seen. I know I keep harping on about this, but I’ve seen quite a lot of athletes getting stuck in a rut of doom and gloom yet again through February. The usual suspect is illness, this month it seems we’ve had all the usual suspects yet again, but many athletes have also come down with the norovirus. Some have been hit incredibly hard and it’s easy to get a little despondent in relation to training, goals and progression. It’s also easy to understand why some athlete will be firmly throwing their toys out of the pram when this happens.

My job as a coach during phases like this is to help guide athletes through these tricky periods because of the mental toll this takes on them. This is especially more evident in athletes that have chosen earlier season races where they will feel like the clock has started tick and is continually gaining momentum. In many cases, it always seems a lot worse than it is, because illness always seems to last 3 times longer than it does when you are in its all-consuming bubble. Even just missing 2-3 days of training can sometimes feel like a week, the reason being, everything has slowed and you suddenly have much more time on your hands. Whereas previously every minute of the day was accounted for in relation to training prep, the training and then focussing on recovery protocols…suddenly you only have rest to focus on. This period will feel a bit like mental torture for many athletes.

The key to overcoming this and dealing with it better is to make the mental shift away from training and towards focussing on resting and recovery. The sooner you are able to do this (this should come with experience) the sooner you will get back into do what you love doing most. You simply cannot put a time limit on this that most athletes (especially men!) seem to do. In many cases they assume “oh it will only last a day or two, so I plan to do training then”. This is an assumption you should never ever make because you have no idea how long any illness will last. If it’s a day or two you’ve been lucky, but in worse cases I see it last a week or in worst cases 1-4weeks if you get a bad case of the flu or some upper respiratory illness.

This approach does nothing for you mentally because you might rest for 2 days then still not be ready, further compounding your disappointment. If you then decide to do a training session when you aren’t fully healthy you run the risk of prolonging it even further. It’s far better to just take a one day at a time approach and make that self-analysis each day as you progress into it. You’ll quite quickly know if things are good or bad if you are able to be honest with yourself. If in doubt then take any extra day rest, there is no rush, it will pay huge dividends if you get the timing right.

You should also remember that the longer the illness the slower you have to build back into training again. If you are ill for a week then it’s probably going to take at least another week before you start to feel good in training again. Even if this is the case remember to just ENJOY the fact that you are able to train again as this is the best feeling in the world. Worrying about what you’ve lost and how heavy or slow you feel is a pointless task because you should expect to feel like that after what your body has just been through.

I admit that none of this is an easy task, but you can become much better at dealing with it if you really try to be less emotional and more rationale about it when it happens. It is what it is, you simply got unlucky. It’s all too easy to spit the dummy but in all honestly, where does this ever get you? You might need to do that initially to get some kind of mental release and that’s ok, but when you wake up the next day you need to pull up your positivity pants and prioritise helping your body to get better.

And if you think none of this happens to the best athletes in the world. You couldn’t be anymore wrong…

On a more positive note, I will say is there has definitely been an upturn in the weather on some days this past month. I even managed to get out on my bike last Saturday and was able to finally takes my gloves off! Think that’s the first time since November. The sunshine on my ugly mug was also very welcome. It’s the small wins that we should be grateful for.

For those that didn’t get ill, we’ve seen quite an amazing month of racing from our guys & girls. With many of them finishing on the podium and settings new PB’s. Congratulations to all of you below who put in some superb performances for so early in the year.

Race results

Meta Sprint Duathlon Singapore (3k run/ 20km bike / 3km run)

Vicki Hill
Splits: run 14:07/ bike 33:49 / run 14:01
Total Time: 1:04:12
1st in the 50-54 category / 4th female overall

Great to see ‘The Pocket Rocket’ back in action this month as she starts her builds up to the Ironman World Champs in Hawaii later this year. She couldn’t have started better than to take the win and 4th female overall, solid start Vicki Hill!

Dorney Lake Sprint Duathlon (5k run/ 20km bike / 2.5km run)

Pip Paxman
Splits: run 22:17/ bike 33:59 / run 10:40
Total Time: 1:08:33
2nd in the 30-34 category / 8th female overall

Stepping up to another level with this performance compared to last year and hitting the podium, nice work Pip. Just reward for your tremendous consistency these past few weeks. Only just getting started with so much more to come.

The Innocent Half marathon (with 360m of ascent!)

Andy Rogerson
Total Time: 1:22:25 (new PB)
3rd male overall

Park Run (5k)

Andy Rogerson
Total Time: 17:10 (46 second PB)
45-49 category / 5th male overall

Two outstanding performances all within the same month for our Scottish Braveheart. He proves his metal yet again with 2 huge new PB’s and continues to be well ahead of the game at this early stage of the season. Huge congrats Andy.

Richmond Park Half Marathon

Anton Sensky
Total Time: 1:53:12

A really solid performance from Anton at one of the tougher half marathon races in Richmond Park. Lots learned from this one that will serve you well as you start your build up to Ironman Tallinn later this year.

Lydiard Park Run (5k)

Andrew Reardon
Total Time: 19:53
2nd in the 45-49 category / 14th male overall

Terrific to see Andrew running his second sub 20min 5k this year with a new PB. The perfect way to kick a big year off that finishes with the big one at Ironman Florida.

Swim kit review

One piece of swim kit my swim kit my squads have started using this month is the Swim Parachute by NABAIJI.

Now swim parachutes are nothing new, but where this fabulous piece of kit is such a big winner is that it comes in at the bargain price of £14.99 at Decathlon, way cheaper than some other brands out there. You also get 3 different sized parachutes with it that offer differing levels of resistance from low-high. As you might be able to tell, I’m a huge fan, it might just be up there with my other favourite piece of swim kit the swim snorkel. Use the 2 of them together and it’s quite magical.

The reason I’m such a big fan of the parachute and snorkel is because they provide swimmers with one incredibly invaluable commodity in the water – time. Time to think of technique because you don’t have to breath to the side. Whereas the parachute slows you down so you can be more aware of technical elements that you want to focus on. This could be anything from catch, pull, rotation, kick, recovery, alignment, head position this list goes on and on. But where this combo is the clear winner is the way it almost forces you to catch and press the water with slightly higher elbows you get more purchase/ connectivity on the water. The beauty of adding the snorkel in is you can then see what is going on underwater so you can get some kind of visual reassurance.

The parachute is also just another way of adding resistance, but it feels totally different to paddles because you are pulling the resistance from behind and not from the front. For me this very much eases the level of shoulder strain, this is especially good for swimmers who might not like paddles or find they hurt their shoulders. Typically, even the smallest parachute will slow you down by 15-20 secs per 100m. It just feels that it creates resistance in all the right ways and it’s quite the workout. When you take it off you feel like you are slipping through the water like an absolute fish.

As with all new pieces of kit just add it in slowly, a simple set of 5 x 100m on 20 ri will suffice and you can build it up from there. This is a fantastic tool for both strength training and improving technique. It gets a firm 10/10 for me.

What I’ve been reading, watching & listening to this month…

The ‘Miles from Ordinary podcast’ with Spine race winner – Lucy Gossage

I’m such a fan of these 3 incredible ladies. What’s also evident is how funny they are when you put them all together in a podcast, I haven’t laughed that much in years! For those that don’t know Bex is a Triathlon Coach, Nikki Bartlett is her pro triathlete wife & Lucy Gossage is a legend of Ironman triathlon & now the ultra-running world after winning the brutal 268-mile spine race recently. The podcast focusses in on what it took for her to take that win. A rip-roaring account of what it took to win one of the hardest running races in the world. Be warned, some people are just built differently, and I mean that in the nicest possible way!

Vindication Swim

An interesting film about the first British Women (Mercedes Gleitze) to ever swim the English Channel in 1927. It’s an incredible story but maybe lacked the budget to do it justice. I’m reliably told though that the Director (Elliot Hasler) was only 19 when he directed it too which is quite astounding. Put into that context I really think it shows what a bright future this young Director might have.

The Trading Game: A confession

I think Rory Stewart summed this Sunday Times Best Seller up when described it as “an unforgettable story of greed, financial madness and moral decay” because it really is just that.

For some reason I always wanted to know what went on in the trading world because it’s so removed from my own. This book didn’t disappoint as Gary Stevenson, a former top trader with Citibank lifts the lid on what went on during the time when he was one of the highest earning traders in the world. It’s a true rags to riches story about a young boy coming from a poor family in East London. It’s his journey to the top of the tree that ultimately destroyed him, his health and made him seriously question what was going on in the world around him. I couldn’t put it down.

Team out & about